


I don’t feel anything (one shot).

by bensoloren



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars The Force Awakens, star wars the last jedi
Genre: F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 16:44:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14476926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bensoloren/pseuds/bensoloren
Summary: Set during the last Jedi, this is basically a conversation between Ben and Rey i would of liked to see on screen!.





	I don’t feel anything (one shot).

The ground is solid and yet Ben feels as if it’s about to crumble at any moment. Those brown eyes haunt his every waking thought and he wonders if even sleep with provide him with relief or if he would then be haunted by the sound of her voice. He’s crumbled onto the floor, long dark locks hanging around his face as he fights for breath. Luke was gone, he’d felt the shift of it all. A disturbance. It didn’t bring him peace however, it didn’t make him feel anything. He’d never wanted this, he could tell himself he did but Ben knew the truth. Perhaps he had always known. The conflict within him is at breaking point, sooner or later he’s going to have to make a decision that determines who he is to the core. Light or Dark. It’s a huge weight on his shoulders, is he Anakin or is he Vader? Perhaps he doesn’t have to be either. Rey had believed he could be better, that he was better and now she was forced to realise it wasn’t that easy. Nothing ever was.

He wishes he’d gone back with her, taken her hand and walked back to his mother. It’s not a thought he’s had since joining the first order, but it’s ever present now and it is truly taunting him. His head snaps up, eyes locked upon the girl herself as something in the force shifts. The look she gives him isn’t one of anger, not anymore. There’s pity buried in her expression and Ben privately thinks that’s worse. He’d rather she hates him than pity him. “Do you feel better now?” Her voice is somewhat monotone, no accusation and yet everything she’s trying to say is written in her thoughts, he can hear them as clear as day. What she’s really asking is if Luke being gone, made him feel any better. “No. I don’t feel better.” The words come out harsh, obsidian meeting hazel. He wants to be angry at her but he can’t find it within him. Something has changed, perhaps in that very throne room where he had chosen to fight by her side rather than end her life. “I don’t feel anything at all.” Luke had warned him, ‘if you strike me down in anger.’ Luke would always be with him, it’s a feeling that suffocating him. He doesn’t know who he is anymore, that one choice in that throne room had been a spark for something else.

“Good.” Rey’s words are a little more bitter, she stares him down defiantly. Not because she thinks he’s a monster, no. She can see what’s beneath, this conflict that has been with him from day one. But what he’s done is wrong, she can see that, and she won’t help him whilst he’s on this side of the fence so to speak. He can only help himself. He can see her surroundings, barely. The force connection is not as strong as it had been before, Snoke had been behind the first few but this was something else. The force was pulling them together, neither one of them could control it. Balance, light and dark. The light would restore the balance in the dark. “Have you come to demand an apology?” Ben replies somewhat brashly but it fails, if anything he sounds like a scared child facing the consequences of his actions. “Or perhaps you hope to kill me.” This is uttered in his usual low murmur, he searches her thoughts for signs of malicious intent but finds none. 

His compassion was going to kill him, Snoke had warned him of this and yet he still kept tugging at that thread, not caring about the fact he was dangerously teetering towards the edge. “I didn’t come to do anything, this isn’t my doing.” She replies, her voice softer than it had been before. “Why! Why did you have to do this?” It’s amazing, how quickly she can go from gentle to harsh all in the space of five seconds, demanding to know the reason for his choices. He struggles to his feet, the vulnerability from being on the floor doesn’t sit well with him despite knowing that she’s not here to assassinate him as she probably should. She never completed her training, Luke was the last Jedi. That realisation hits him like a ton of bricks. Rey and Ben were the same in that aspect, never completed what they were supposed to do, instead they had the knowledge, but not the title.

Ben had never really wanted to be a Jedi in the first place. There had been a time when he’d wanted to be a pilot like his father, when he would follow Han Solo around whilst holding the small dice from the millennial falcon. Those days were long gone, Ben no longer had such dreams. He wasn’t sure what he wanted anymore. He was playing with a legacy he didn’t quite understand. “Because…that’s who I am Rey, what did you think was going to happen? That I would take your hand and we’d go skipping back to the resistance. You were asking me to walk to my death.” No, that’s not true, that’s his own paranoia eating at him and distorting his mind. “I saw you turn, in my mind I saw your future Ben! You turn, why are you fighting it?.” The anger, the confusion in her voice is evident and Ben privately remembers a lesson his uncle had tried to teach him, his emotions served him well but if given into, they would be his undoing. Luke had been right. 

Rey’s however seem to serve her more than well, she has not given into darkness so easily yet he senses she has touched it and has looked upon it’s face. “Did you really think it would be easy? To undo years of….” He doesn’t finish the sentence. Years of condition, manipulation, abuse, falsified praise to keep him in line. The look she gives him suggests she can see in him what he can in her. “I have hope.” She replies, a look of defiance on the scavenger girls face. “Someone once told me, hope is like the sun. if you only believe in it when you see it….” He finishes her sentence “You’ll never make it through the night.” He knows that quote, knows where it comes from. His mother, from Alderaan. A place he’d never been able to visit. A different time. His words seem choked, his thoughts now on his mother. He couldn’t fire on her, even when he’d had a clear shot. What did that say about the darkness coiling inside of him? Was it slowly being devoured by the light?. “You still believe you can turn me?.” His gaze is once again upon her and she shakes her head. “No.” It’s a simple reply but one of confusion.

“No?.” He asks trying not to sound crestfallen. Ben isn’t sure why this has such an affect on him, why he feels like a lost cause. “Only you, can turn yourself to the light. I was wrong. I can’t help you.” The only person who could help him was himself. The connection seems to quake, a signal that they don’t have long. “Only me.” He murmurs, brows knitted in confusion. “You wanted it once, I saw you Ben, the real you. You wanted to come with me but you wouldn’t let yourself. You have to want it, to want it so much that it overrides that monster.” He’d never allowed himself to want anything other than the destruction of those who had hurt him, who had left him. Now he was free of Snoke with no idea how to continue forward. 

“You have to kill Kylo Ren…. before you can become Ben again. Luke was wrong. But so was i.” She’s establishing boundaries, making it clear she will not be the one to save him, that pressure will not be on her shoulders because it’s not her job. She feels sympathy for him, empathy but does not excuse his actions. The connection shakes again, Rey inhales sharply, eyes locked upon him knowing this might be the last time she see’s him for a while. They will meet again, he’ll have a choice to make. “Goodbye ben.” Her voice waves, something in it breaks and he suddenly realises she’s crying. What astonishes him even more is the wetness on his own cheeks. The force connection fails, and she’s gone, ripped away from him and he’s overcome by a sense of self hatred, but he’s not alone. It’s a strange concept, completely alien to the supreme leader who had felt nothing but loneliness for his entire life.

Rey is gone, with the force connection but she’s somehow still here. ‘You’re not alone’ ‘Neither are you’.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey darlings! i got inspired after rewatching tlj so i thought i'd write a little something. I hope you enjoy <3


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